Schooled
by FeatherClaw of Windclan
Summary: AU. What would happen if the LOTR characters were in high school? Pippin, sam, frodo, and merry encounter many strange characters, interesting people, and much more in this odd, but comical story. NOT A MARY SUE FIC.
1. Good morning, Destiny

Pippin Took sat on the faux leather bus seat, his knees propped up on the back of the seat in front of him. He was wearing jeans and a black tee shirt that said, 'Can't touch this' in white letters, and his hair was brushed neatly to one side of his head. It was morning, and mist was hanging low in the air, and the fields that the school bus were passing looked like they were covered in a thick layer of clouds. Most of the windows on the bus were closed, except for one two seats in front of him, and the strong wind blew back his curly hair.

It was the first day of high school for the hobbit and his friends, and he was determined to have a great time no matter what. Pippin had been looking forward to this day for years! He had seen Merry and Frodo over the summer, but he hadn't seen Sam and was looking forward to seeing his friend again.

The bus stopped, and another hobbit with silver-blue eyes and brown hair stepped onto the bus, a black backpack slung carelessly over his shoulder.He wore a green shirt that said abercrombie and fitch on it in white print, and also wore jeans.

"Frodo! Over here!", he called exitedly, waving.

"Hey pippin!", he exclaimed as he threw down his backpack and sat next to him.

"Would you two mind shutting up?", an angry, tired voice growled, "Some of us were actually sleeping." The voice belonged to a he-elf, probablly a senior, with long brown hair and brown eyes that were shut with exhaustion.

Pippin shrugged guiltily, and he and Frodo continued the conversation in a low tone.

"I'm so exited!", Frodo whispered.

"Yeah. I wonder who'll have our classes.", He said.

"I dunno."

The bus came to a stop, and a tall, blonde-haired he elf and two hobbits got onto the bus.

"Sam! Merry!",he exclaimed without thinking.

The senior glared at him with a gaze of blue fire.

Sam and merry sat down in the seat in front of them, and the he-elf sat behind them. Merry immediately turned around, putting his elbow on the back of the seat.

"I can't beleive it, it's finally the first day of--", he started, only to be cut off by Frodo and Pippin.

"Shhhh!", they both hissed urgently at the same time, gesturing towards the senior.

"Right.", he whispered, "I can't beleive it's finally the new school year at last. We're gonna be in high school!"

"Yeah, Isn't it great!"

The bus finally reached the high school, WillowBrook High, and stopped in the bus area. All of the students stood up, getting their posessions and then waiting for the bus driver to allow them to leave. She finally opened the doors and wished them a good day before dismissing them.

They had been assigned home rooms the day before, so they all already knew where to go. He, Sam,Frodo, and Merry walked along one of the halls to some guy named Gandalf's class, as that was their home room.

They walked inside, and they saw their teacher. He had a long gray beard and mustache, and was pretty old looking. Atop his head was a pointy hat, and he wore a gray cloak. Frodo raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"Welcome to my class, everybody.", he said to them, "I am Mr. Gandalf. May I please have a name to call you by?"

"I'm Frodo, this is Sam, this is Merry, and this is Pippin.", he said.

"Ah. You may sit where you want for now, later we might have permanent seating assignments.", Mr.Gandalf told them.

"Thank you, sir.", Merry said.

"What was that for?", he hissed to Merry as they went to find their desks, "Suck-up."

Merry laughed and nodded.

Merry wound up sitting on his right, and Sam on his left. Frodo sat in front of him.

The bell rang, and Mr. Gandalf walked to the front of the class with a teaching stick.

"Good morning everybody, I'm Mr.Gandalf.", he said, "I know that you guys are probablly pretty nervous, it being your first day of school and all--"

"A dwarf is never nervous!", a student, a dwarf with a big beard, called.

Mr.Gandalf sighed and continued.

"Anyways, here we are going to forget what race we are, because we are all her for the common cause of learning, so I don't want any thousand year wars refought in my language arts class room. Got it?", he asked, glancing at one of the elves and then at a dwarf.

The dwarf grumbled under his breath, and the elf glared, but they both nodded.

"Good.", Mr.Gandalf said to them, "Now let's go over the syllabus.", he said as he passed them out.

Before long, the bell had rang and they were dismissed to their next class, History...

**Okay, dso this is my first time doing a LOTR fanfiction. I hate mary sues so there will be no mary sues in this fic. Please review, as I need help with these thingies. Thanks!**


	2. History Class

The four of them walked to history class, clutching their schoolbooks to their chests as they walked through the congested hallways. People, Elves, Dwarves, and hobbits were all trying to shove their way through at the same time,. and the traffic was NOT in two lanes despite all of the yelling from the teachers.

"Come on, we're in Mr. Sauroman's history class next.", Sam said as they walked into the classroom.

"No kidding.", Merry muttered as he sat down. There were many desks, and there was a dry erase board in the front of the classroom. On it was written in red marker: Warm-up: Turn to page 362 in the social studies book under your desk.

"Well, we should get started.", Frodo said, getting his book and turning to the page.

_"The elves and the dwarves were both equally numbered, but the dwarves had axes where the elves had bows and mithril. The dwarves were also more at home in the mountains, so they were very easily able to drive off the elven forces_--

"This is a bunch of Bull!", they heard a voice yell, "Everybody knows that the dwarves ambushed the elves!!"

"Oh really, Idiot?", they heard a deep, gruff voice growl.

"Really!", the first voice hissed.

"Be quiet! Both of you!", they heard a man's voice yell above both of them.

"Sorry, sir.", the elf said immediately.

The dwarf grumbled under his breath.

The teacher walked to the front of the class, and cleared his throat.

"Mister Greenleaf, would you please avert your attention from Arwen and look at the front of the class?", he asked the blonde elf they had seen on the bus earlier. His face turned a deep shade of crimson, as did the brown-haired she-elf's.

Some of the class laughed.

"Okay, now we may start class. Today we will start learning about the dwaf-elf war.", he said. A dwarf opened his mouth to speak, but the wizard was too fast for him.

"Throughout this lesson, no comments, no talking.", he told them, "And I will write out slips to the office."

"Oooh, scary, scary.", a dwarf said flatly.

The teacher glared, and continued the lesson.

"The elves invaded the mountains, in huge numbers. However, one third of them died on the journey. Who knows why?"

"I think I know the answer, sir!", a hobbit said.

"Yes, Rosie?", the teacher asked her.

"The elven forces were unprepared for the weather and the winds, and a lot of them got such severe windcough that they died."

"Correct, Rosie. The elves were unprepared for the weather and had only a few healers. The dwarves, however, were immune to this strain of windcough."

A couple of Dwarves made some weird chering noises. Pippin let his atttention wander across the room... Sam was staring at this rosie charcter, he realized. Probablly thought she was hot. Ah well, different strokes for different folks. Mr. Sauroman's words were all one endless stream of background noise to him, nothing of his uinterest. He laid his head down on his desk, he was tired, so...tired...

"Mister Took! Wake up this instant!", the teacher snapped.

"Mmrrphhh?", he murmured, slowly sitting up.

"The bell has rang, mister took!And don't let me catch you sleeping again!"

"Sorry, sir..", he muttered.

**Please review, and yay, chapter 2 is up! A lot of these scenaris have actually happened...**


	3. The Gift

As he walked down the hall next to Merry, Sam, and Frodo, Pippin couldn't help but feel the slightest bit annoyed. After all, Merry had been sitting right next to him! How hard could it be to lean over and tap somebody on their shoulder, maybe say something along the lines of, ' wake up' ?

He turned to face Merry, deciding that he wanted to confront him.

"Why didn't you wake me up?!", he asked, waving his hands in the air, "Mr.Sauroman yelled at me because you didn't wake me up!"

Pippin felt his anger rising, it was that idiot's fault that he had been publically embarrased in the first place!

"Relax. I would have, I swear!", his friend said innocently.

Pippin just rolled his eyes and ignored Merry.

He took out his agenda, a small yellow book that served as his hall pass and class schedule, to see what class he had for third period. Ah, Science class. Science was his second best subject, and he had been looking to taking advanced biology for a while now.

"What class have you got next?", he asked Sam, still not feeling that happy with Merry and wanting to make it obvious.

"Math.", Sam said unhappily with a sigh, "I hate math. You?"

"I've got science.", He told Sam.

"What about you, Frodo?", he asked the other hobbit, hoping that they shared science class.

"Science.", Frodo said to him.

_Yes!, _he thought, _At least I'll have someone to talk to!_

Merry looked away, he had obviously gotten Pippin's cue that he was angry with him.

Pippin, Frodo, and Merry waved goodbye to Sam as they walked into the science class with their books. Pippin took a moment to take in his surroundings. There were black tables with plastic chairs pulled up to them, two chairs to a table. In the front of the room there was a dry erase board and a big black table with a lot of papers on it. In the back of the room there was a faux granite counter with a pressure sink and a basket that said, "warm-ups" above it. He waited for a few seconds to see if the teacher was going to tell him where to sit, and then sat down at a table next to Frodo.

The teacher walked up to the board. He was a rather old looking hobbit with an old coat and gray hair.

"Hello, class. My name is Mr.Baggins, and I will be your science teacher.", he told them.

Frodo slouched in his seat, obviously embarrased. Pippin could sympathize, to a degree. It WOULD be rather embarrasing to have a realative or even somebody with the same last name a yours teaching a class, especially one that you were in. He also realized what this could potentially do to Frodo's reputation when word got out that the hobbit was related to his science teacher. Pippin hoped that Mr.Baggins was nice, more for Frodo's sake than he did his own.

"Now, I already have a seating chart, but first we are going to call role. When I call your name, you will raise your had and I will point to where I want you to sit."

Pippin looked around the room t see how many people were there. He made a quick guess of about twenty, and then turned back to look at the teacher.

"Pippin Took?", he called.

"Here.", Pippin said,raising his hand. Mr Baggins pointed to a spot near the back of the room.

Pippin gathered his books and walked back to the desk. It would be easier to do things he wasn't supposed to and not get caught back here, he realized with a grin. He noticed Frodo and a few other students look at him enviously out of the corner of his eye.

"Boromir?", he asked.

"Here.", said a human with sandy colored hair.

"You will sit over there, under the T.V.", Mr.Baggins told him.

"Under the TV? What if it falls? It will kill me!", he said, a cocky smile on his face.

"Exactly!", an elf said, laughing, "I think that's why he put you under the T.V, Boromir!"

"Oh you shut up.", he muttered as he moved.

The teacher looked up at the clock, before saying, "Lunchtime. Go ahead and line up. Does anybody not know their lunch number?"

The students all lined up, and Frodo joined hjim at the near back of the line.

They walked down the hall to the lunchroom, where they got their trays and put the revolting 'food' onto them. As they went to sit down, he couldn't help but notice that it was glowing. Oh well, it was probablly just his imagination, but still...

He sat down at the lunch table with the card that said Baggins on it, and Frdo and Sam followed. Merry went of to sit with some dwarves he had been speaking to earlier.

Boromir sat down across from him, setting down his tray with a thud.

"Ello, the name's Boromir.", he said to him.

"Pippin.", he said, shakling his hand.

Why was this dude being so nice to him?, he wondered, Oh well, he was just being nice, no worries. Anyways, yay, as in, somebody had sat across from him on his own will.

"Nice to meet ya.", he said.

"This is Sam, and this is Frodo.", he told Boromir.

"Nice to meet you guys.", the human said.

He noticed with shock that Sam had, in the short time that they had been at the table, eaten all of his food and drank all of his juice.

Sam now had the juice bottle suctioned onto his cheek.

"Holy crap!", Boromir exclaimed, "Look at what he's doing!".

Sam nodded and smiled.

"Ew.," a girl at another table said.

"That's disgusting!", Frodo said.

"That's a gift!", Boromir exclaimed.

They all stared at him. Yes, this dude was rather odd...

**Okay, that chapter is over. Sorry if some characters are a bit out of character. Please review, all, as this is my first try at doing something along thoise lines.**


	4. PC

After lunch, he went to his next class, Math. The math classroom was freezing with an air conditioner literally the size of the back of an SUV. There were desks organized into tables with four desks each, and there was a row of five brand new computers in the back. He noticed that Frodo and Merry were in his class, as well as Rosie and that Elf that had gotten called out in home room this morning. He felt a tinge of sympathy for whatever the elf's name was for a moment, it must have been rather embarrasing. Then again, in the corner of his mind he was happy that it hadn't been him. As for the others in the class, Merry still wasn't talking to him and Frodo was texting under the desk. He sighed, wondering who his friend was talking to.

"Frodo.", he whispered, "Who are you--"

"AUGH!", Frodo yelped, alarmed, "You startled me!"

"Sorry.", he muttered. Maybe if the hobbit hadn't been texting, it wouldn't have happened! Frodo looked like he had started to calm down, and the look of alarm on his face was replaced with one of irritation.

"Who are you texting?", he asked Frodo curiously.

"Sam.", he said simply before looking back down at his cell phone. And right then, in that moment, Pippin was tempted to get out his cell phone and text somebody- who, he didn't know- but decided not to as he would be caught pretty fast if he even attempted texting. That was the thing abut him-- he was jinxed, if he did say so himself. WHENEVER he attempted doing anything bad, he would always, always, always get caught. Always. Frodo, on the other hand, could pull off anything that he wanted to, say anything that he wanted to, even do anything he wanted and never get in trouble. Oh well, it was probablly just his edgy urban nature that allowed him to do this.

Pippin looked around the room. It was five minutes past the bell and the teacher hadn't arrived, that was sort of odd. Still, he couldn't help but be happy that they were unsupervised for once. Here, in the highschool, everybody babied the freshmans, holding their hands through every assignment and every command. So for once, it was a releif that the teacher was not present. And, he couldn't object to missing math class.

He decided to go and talk to Rosie, maybe he could work something out between Sam and her. He approached her while she sat alone at her desk, probablly the only person in the room minus Frodo, who was texting, that was sitting.

"Hey Rosie.", he said to her with a wave, "What's up?"

"Nothing.", she said, 'Now would you please move, I'm trying to do the warm-up."

"there's a warm up?", he asked in surprise, turning back around to look at the board. surely enugh, they were supposed to write a paragraph how theyt got in Advanced math.

_ADVANCED MATH?? What is all of this about advanced math? I never signed up for this! _, Pippin thought.He then recalled the test that he had taken in the eigth grade to determine whether or not he would get into the advanced math classroom. No, it wasn't supposed to end this way! He had tried his hardest to FAIL that test!

Math had always been his least favorite subject, partially if not entirely because of his old eighth grade math teacher who had HATED him. It wasn't just him who thought this, either, all of the other students in his math class said the same thing. And it wasn't like he was doing anything bad in math, either. She just didn't like him for whatever reason. And then it hit him like a ton of bricks: Putting him in the advanced math class was her last laugh. She had allowed him to think that he had gotten the last laugh by letting him get away with cussing her out under his breath when he left the school last year, and he had been relaxed and at ease over the summer. thinking that that it had been the last score, but it hadn't. Oh, no. Because over the summer, she had convinced the school board to put him in this stupid classroom.

"Okay class, you have a warm-up!", a teacher said to them as he walked up to the board.

Rosie looked at him triumphantly befor continuing on her paragraph.

"And Mister Baggins, please put your cellular device up. If I see it out again, It's points and it will get taken up.", the teacher said to Frodo, who paid no attention seeing as he was absorbed in his texting.

"Mister Baggins! Please put your cell phone up!", he said again.

"Frodo," he whispered in Frodo's ear, "Put up your cell phone."

"Right.", Frodo said, noticing that the whole class was staring at him.

"Okay, now that that is over, we will start the lesson.", he told them, "Under your desks you will see a mathbook. We'll be using these until I get to assign you new books. Please turn to page 462 and wait for further instruction."

The class did as they were told, and the fluttering of pages could be heard for about five minutes. When it stopped, the teacher continued his lesson.

He began to read from the book: _"When we have to use very large numbers, we sometimes use exponents. Exponents are made of a base and a power."_

" Sir?", asked one student.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Aren't we supposed to be pleasure reading today?", he asked.

Pippin realized with a jolt that today WAS pleasure reading day in math, when they would bring a book to school and read for twenty minutes.

"Oh, yes, that.", he said, "Right. Anyways, Exponents are made of a base and a power...", he started again.

Merry raised his hand.

"Yes, Merry?", the math teacher asked him.

"What is a base? You never told us.", he asked the teacher with a confused look on his face.

"What is a base?", the teacher repeated, "If I tell you, you'll never learn."

"Well what am I supposed to look at?! ", he asked, bewildered.

If his question had been heard, the math teacher showed no signs of it. Even though he was upset with MErry, he was already starting to miss the hobbit's playful antics and smart remarks. Quite frankly, he would have walked over to him right then and there and apologised if he hadn't been so proud.

Math class dragged on, with kids asking questions that were only repeated to them. Somewhere during the lesson a dwarf had asked to go to the front office to check the lost and found and had never returned. How convinient.

Finally, the bell rang and all of the students got up at the same time, eager to leave this place.

Personally, he felt more releived than he had ever felt in his life, and for once, he actually understood the meaning of, "Saved by the bell."

As he and Frdo walked through the hall, Frodo leaned over and whispered, "I have a new name for the math teacher."

"What?", Pippin asked the other hobbit.

"PC.", He said simply.

"What does PC mean, Frodo?", he asked.

Frodo glanced around before whispering, "Psycho Crazy."

"Ah. very fitting.", He said.

"So, what connections class do you have?", Frodo asked him.

"Gym.", he told frodo, looking at his schedule, "What about you?", he asked.

"I've got keyboarding.", he sighed, "With the teacher that crawled out of the deepest trench in the sea."

"Mr. Morgan isn't THAT bad, Frodo. Yuo don't even know him!"

"I know the legends.", Frodo said.

Pippin rolled his eyes. How had Frodo aqquired this information so fast, anyways? He just had to wonder.

"Bye, man.", he said as he headed for the gym.

"Bye!", Frodo waved, "See you on the bus!"

"See ya!", Pippin said as he walked off.

**Okay, thanks for the reviews, all. They are always appreciated!**


	5. Soccer is a painful sport

When they got into the gym, he saw that it was brand new, with big bleachers on either side and bright flourescent lighting. It had a rubber-ish floor with the marks to play different sports on it, and kids were pouring in from the main entrance of the gym. There were bathrooms and dressing rooms to the back of the gym, and there were windows on the side of he building. It was a pretty nice place, Pippin had to admit, but somehow, he could feel dread rising in him. It was then that he remembered: You had to dress-out, or change clothes, in front of the other students. Apparently, the other students had already figured this out and were over their initial shock, because now they were talking in excited whispers amongst themselves.

He looked around to see who he would have gym class with. The only faces he recognised were those on Boromir, that elf who had a lot of his classes with him, Merry, Sam, and Arwen. Well, this would surely be interesting. Who knows, maybe he could find a nice quiet time to go and apologize to Merry during gym. But would MErry accept his apology?, he wondered for the first time. Oh well. He had more pressing hings to deal with.

"Okay, listen up!", a woman with blonde hair yelled, "As you know, it is the first day of gym. We start soccer today, as many of you also know."

Pippin felt his heart skip a beat. Yes! Soccer was the one thing he, Peregrine Took, was even remotely good at when it came to sports, and he was going to show the world his talent. He noticed, though, that th elf's attention had been fixed on her ever since she said the word. _Oh lord, don't tell me he's a soccer player! We're gonna get shown-up so bad if he isn't on our team!_ The elf was obviously involved in sports, and Pippin had the feeling that when he got onto the field, he would mean business.

"As you also know, before gym we have dress-outs. This means that you have to change clothes in the locker rooms. However, there will be no playing around in the locker rooms. Got it?", she asked them.

The boys muttered agreement. He cast a glance behind him, where the girls were being breifed as well about the dresssing room policy.

"Okay, you may go.", she told them. Luckily, he had remembered to bring his gym clothes, which was a blessing because he surely wasn't going to wear public use gym clothes. Ew.

When they were done dressing out, they all went back into the gym wearing white Tee shirts and running pants. He personally would rather be in his normal clothes, for whatever reason. Oh well. Like they would listen to him.

"Okay, I assume we all know how to play soccer?", she asked them.

They all nodded.

"Does anyone here play soccer?", she asked.

The elf raised his hand proudly. All attention turned to him. _Crap._, he thought.

"What position?", the teacher asked him.

"Forward.", he told her.

"Alright, Legolas, you will be Team A's forward.", she told him, "If that's okay."

_Legolas! _That was the elf's name! Jeez, why couldn't he remember things like that?

He nodded. He may have seemed cool and calm, but Pippin could sense the energy inside of him, the desire to run. He surely hoped he was on the elf's team, partially because he could not bear to lose a game.

"Okay, we'll assign teams.", she said. As she assigned teams, he got just what he had been asking for all along by wanting things to go his way for once: He was on the opposing team.

They headed down to the soccer fields, the gym teacher leading them down the concrete stairs. When they got there, she told them to discuss what they planned to do with their groupmates.

Boromir, Merry, and a few other students were on their team.

"I'll take forward.", Boromir volunteered, stepping forward.

"Fine, dude, but you are gonna get shown-up so ba--", a hobbit started.

"Does it matter who wins??", Merry demanded, "Why can't we all just have fun??"

"This is soccer, Merry.", somebody told him, "There is no 'just having fun.' It's all game in soccer."

Merry sighed and looked around boredly.

"Merry, you can be defense. Pippin, you can be the goalie."

_The goalie!_ That was going to be real fun, but if he got hurt, he would pay the price. No, THEY would pay the price.One way or another, they would all pay...

"Okay, does everybody know their position?", Boromir asked when he was done.

"Yep.", Merry said, "Let's go kick some butt."

1st Quater..

...

Boromir had the ball, and was making a mad dash to the other team's goal. He shot it, but Sam was ready. The hobbit leapt at the ball, grabbing it and sliding it to the ground. He then got up, dusting himself off with the ball under his arm.Sam and all of team A let out victorious howls, and a few of them walked over to the goal and hit him a high five.

Their gym teacher held up her hand to signal a time out, and blew her whistle.

"Okay, good one, Team A!", she said, "That was good teamwork! Let's see the same from team B!" She turned to them.

"You my have a short break to get some water.", she told them, gesturing to the bleachers, "Sit down and rest."

_Thank god!_, he thought as he dragged himself to the bleachers, _I'm about to die of thirst!_

He had been the goalie for the past thirty minutes, and he had fallen, ducked, lunged, and kicked for almost the whole quarter, almost as if it was one long, continuous thirty minute dance. He sat down on the bleachers, and grabbed his water bottle. Team A was winning, and they had already scored five goals thanks to Legolas. He decided to see what the elf was doing, to see if there was any trick involved. That was typical for him some of these days,even though he knew that there was no trick and that he was just a good soccer player, the immature side of his mind wanted to accuse Legolas of cheating right there, on the spot.

The elf was getting something to drink at the time as he listened to another player on his team. At one point the forward spat out his water in shock, sending a spray all over the ground. There were mixed expressions throughout the conversation, from comical smiles to rather angry looks shot across the field. Pippin desperately wanted to listen in, to hear what they were saying, but decided that it would be better if he didn't.

"Okay, has everybody gotten their water?", she called across the field.

They all said agreement, and got back in their positions.

The ball was put into play by Sam, who sent it flying across the field. Merry immediately got it, going across the field for about ten yards with it before passing it off to Boromir. Boromitr dashed across the field with the ball, hounded by two or three defense players as he made his way to team A's goal. But one of the center fielders took the ball as he was running, and they passed it to their forward. Legolas surged across the field, making a straight line to the goal. Pippin was ready. The forward stared straight to Pippin's right, and then kicked it right as their defense cought up with him. Pippin lunged to catch the ball, and that was when it happened.

WHAM! He felt a pain shoot through his face as he was hit, and was on the ground, in shock for a moment. Then he started to taste the salty tase of blood in his mouth and he had a feeling he knew what had happened.

"Oh my god I'm so sorry!", The forward said, dashing over to his side, "Somebdy get a nurse!"

"No..really, it's...okay.", he said, putting his hand over his bleeding nose and mouth.

The nurse appeared on the field with some gauze and various other things, and by then the girls' soccer practice had ended and they were all leaning over him, concerned. In the back of his mind, he was sort of pissed off with legolas for breaking his nose and making his mouth bleed, but the elf's concern had seemed genuine.

"Oh my god , is he okay?", a hobbit girl asked.

"I don't know.", he saw Arwen mutter.

"Come on, Pippin, soccer is over for today.", the coach told him, "School is about to be dismissed."


	6. The long ride home

After getting some quick medical attention, the bell rang and Pippin headed down to the bus. He stepped on, a bit nervous that somebdy might ask him what happened to him. He wore a nose guard now, right on the bridge of his nose where it had been broken. He hoped that Legolas didn't feel too bad, it had only been an accident, after all.

"Good lord!", a dwarf exclaimed the minute he got on, "What happened to you?"

Pippin ignored him and headed to his seat next to frodo. He saw many faces that he hadn't been able to identify earlier because it had been too dark in the morning. He sat down next to Frodo, who had his hodie on,earbuds slammed into his ears, and was texting on his cell phone.

"Hey Frodo.", he said, alerting the hobbit to his presence. Frodo turned around, unplugging his earbuds. His eyes suddenly caught a glimpse of the nose guard that was taped onto Pippin's nose, and his mouth gaped.

"Pippin, what happened?", Frodo asked him, "Did somebody beat you up?" The hobbit's eyes were interested as he waited for Pippin's respose.

"No, nobody beat me up, Frodo.", he said, "I just got hurt when I was playing soccer. It's no big deal."

"Okay, if you say so.", Frodo said as the bus started to move out of its spot and go down the lane, "Wanna listen to some of my rap?", he asked.

"Sure.", Pippin replied, "Thanks." Even in the short amount of time he had been in high school, he knew that sharing earbuds was a gesture of friendship and bonding, like when chimps would groom each other. He put the earbud into his ear, and was immediateluy assaulted by a very loud array of obscenities and foul language.

"Hold on.", he told Frodo, taking out the earbud, 'I wanna see what's going on."

The seniors were singing, more like rocking (he noticed the way that they were flipping their heads back and forth like maniacs) to the song all star. The senior that had growled at him earlier was singing along with another senior at top volume, and the others were sort of singing, too.

The lead singer of these dudes was a blonde elven senior with dark eyebrows.

_It's a cool place and they say it gets colder  
You're bundled up now but wait 'til you get older  
But the meteor men beg to differ  
Judging by the hole in the satellite picture _

_Jeez, he has a great voice!_, Pippin thought. He was tempted to sing along with them but decided to play it safe and not sing along them seeing as one of them was that grumpy senior that had yelled at him that morning.

"So, " he asked Frodo, "Are you going to try out for any sports?"

"What?", Frodo asked, pulling his earbuds out of his ears.

"I said, are you going to try out for any sports?", Pippin repeated.

"Nope.", he said, "You?"

"I might.", Pippin said, "Maybe soccer or Tennis."

"You guys need to join the band.", Said the blonde elf who had been singing earlier, "We really need more people to join. The name's Haldir. Who are you?"

"I'm Pippin, and this is my friend, Frodo.", he introduced them. _Wow! A senior actually talked to me!_, he thought. _Just don't screw this up, _a little voice inside of his head warned him.

"So, who do you guys have for your classes?", The senior asked them, moving his long legs to the aisle and leaning over with his elbows on his knees.

"We've got Gandalf, Bilbo, and Saruman. Not to mention, we also have teacher who never told us his name. We call him PC.", said Pippin.

"Ah. What does that stand for, might I ask?", the senior asked them.

"Psycho crazy.", all of the freshmans on the bus said at the same time.

Haldir raised an eyebrow, and continued his conversation with the ragged-haired human senior.  
It was peacefully dull on the bus, and at that moment Pippin could have cared less if the bus ride went on forever. He could hear the sounds of Frodo's fingers clacking on the keys of his texting device, the sound of the girls talking up front, and the sound of The bus engine running.

He looked over Frodo's shoulder, to see who he was texting. Sure, it was rude, but Frodo would never notice because he was too consumed in what he was doing.

The bus came to a stop, and they watched Rosie get off along with the greasy haired senior and Arwen.

After that, he eventually got off, waving goodbye to Frodo and the others. As he got into the car, his mother let out a gasp.

"What on earth happened to you?", she asked him.

"I got a broken nose playing soccer. I tripped.", he lied, not wanting to blow this up into a big thing, and wuickly added, "The nurse fixed it. She said the cast would come off in a few days."

"Alright, other than that., how was your day?", his mother asked as they pulled into the driveway.

"It was cool.", he said, not wanting to go into detail.

The minute they got home, he headed for his room and got out the phone, hoping that Frodo would be home.

He dialed in Frodo's number and waited.

"Hello?", he heard Frodo answer.

"Hey frodo! Today rocked, didn't it?", he said.

"Yeah, it did.",Frodo said, "I was actually about to call you."

"Why?"

"Sam's sort of pissed at me.", Frodo told him.

"Why?"

"Well, you see, Rosie sort of asked me out when we were texting…", Frodo started.

Rosie asked him out while they were texting?? Did relationships mean so little now that you could break up or get together in chatspeak??

"I don't know what to say—", he started, and he could hear yelling in the background.

"That's my mom.", Frodo said, "I've got to clean my room. Bye, man."

"Bye!"


	7. You've got to be kidding me

The next morning, Pippin got onto the bus, ready for the new day. What he hadn't anticipated, however, was that EVERYBODY stared at him the second that he got on as if his shirt was on backwards. He looked himself over real quick, trying to guess as to why he was being stared down. Had he said something?

He tried to ignore the stares that were burning into the back of his head as he walked to his seat, and he slumped down and put his knees on the back of the seat in front of him, as always. It was pretty relaxing, he had to admit, even though he could sense the tension coming from the bus as a whole. The bus stopped at the bus stop in the countryside, and Frodo, Legolas, and Sam got onto the bus. Sam was steadily glaring at Frodo, and Frodo was flinching from time to time. He noticed the way that everybody stared at Legolas with the same firey intensity that they had stared at him with. He had to wonder…was this all about what had happened on the soccer field yesterday?

The bus eventually stopped at the bus port, where they all got off of the bus and headed to Mr. Gandalf's class. Frodo, once again, had both hands in his hoodie with his head bowed, as if he was texting once more.

"Frodo..", he hissed, "Mr.Gandalf will see you!"

"Student prayer hour.", he muttered under his breath with a grin, "Nobody ever said anything about student prayer hour."

Pippin rolled his eyes. Okay, one of these days Frodo would get what was coming to him, and then he would be very sorry. In fact, Pippin had started to think that they let frodo get away with texting during class BECAUSE of his edgy urban nature!

"Fine.", he huffed, going to catch up with Merry. Merry and him had gotten over the whole fiasco ysterday when Pippin's nose had gotten broken.

"Hey Pippin.", Merry said as Pippin walked alongside him, "There's a really nasty rumor going about, you know. I just heard it from another student."

"What is it?", he asked Merry, hoping that it didn't have anything to do with them.

"They say that Boromir is _emo_.", he said, whispering the last word as if it was a deadly curse, "I wonder why. I'm going to see if I can get a better look at his wrists the first chance I get this morning."

"His wrists?", Pippin asked, bewildered, "Why would you look at his wrists to determine if he's an emo??"

"Ah, poor, naive Pippin.", Merry said with a smile, "Don't ya know that emo people cut their wrists?"

"No.", he said, "And what's so bad about emo people?", he asked.

"Nothing is _bad _about being emo, Pippin.", Merry said, "It's just something a guy wants to know when he's talking to another person."

"Ah.", Pippin said as the two walked into the classroom. What was with all of this hating emo people? Were they like, evil or somthing..._No_, he thought, _Merry is and always had been afraid of people that have dark hair and have even the slightest differences._

He sat down in his normal spot, and the other three sat down in theirs.

"Psst!", he heard Sam hiss to a dwarf, "Pass this to Rosie."

Oh, for the love of god. GET UP AND DO IT YOURSELF, SAM.

"OKAY, CLASS HAS STARTED!!", the teacher growled under his breath as he walked up to the front of the room.

He glanced at Frodo, who continued texting, as always.

"Frodo.", he hissed, "Code red…"

"Right.", his friend muttered, putting up his cell phone, "Thanks for warning me…"

"No problem."

"Okay, today we have pleasure reading, as you all know, so pl;ease get out your pleasure reading books. Does anybody not have their book?", he challenged, looking around the classroom.

Nobody answered.

"Okay, good. No talking.", he told them.

With that, he headed back to his desk and began to sort the papers that had accumulated on it.

"Wonder if we can pay him to put beads in his beard.", he heard Merry mutter to Frodo.

"Nah, I don't think that he would do something like that. PC might, though."

Pippin couldn't help but laugh under his breath. PC would do ANYTHING if they asked him to. Anything.

He got out his book, a murder novel by one of his favorite authors, and opened it up to the page where he last left off.

_Grace ran, her shoes clicking on the linoleum tile flooring as she clutched the cook in her arms… She had to get there, and fast, before the coup started—_

WHAM!!

"What on earth was that??", he heard a student demand. Pippin looked around the room for the source of the noise, and saw Sam lying on the floor along with his chair.

"What happened?", the teacher asked, "I've told you guys a million times not to put your chair on only two legs!"

"I was just stretching!!", he protested, "I swear, I only stretched!"

By now, the whole class was laughing as Sam got up sheepishly, setting his chair back on the ground and continuing to read his book.

The bell eventually rang, dismissing them all to history class. He picked up his books, carrying them with him as he walked through the halls.

"Dude, that was awesome!!", Merry said as he walked alongside him, "did you see him? He was stretching, and then all of a sudden, BAM!!"

"That _was _comical.",Sam admitted as he approached them, "Embarrassing if nothing else, though."

"Yeah, I feel for you, man.", Frodo said, his voice void of expression as he texted.

Dear god! Was texting all Frodo was capable of doing??

They walked into History, where they were greeted by the frigid temperatures that Mr. Saruman kept it at and, to his surprise, cardboard, construction paper, and art materials.

"What the--??", one kid said, raising an eyebrow, "What's all of this about?"

"you're going to be making your own country.", he told them, his hands folded as he sat at his desk, "I will be giving you a rubric momentarily."

They sat down, and students immediatyely started to murmur about what they would call theirs.

Pippin felt excirtemnt rise inside of him. He loved these creative projects, as they were definitely hios strength.

The teacher got up, passing out rubrics to them and then walking to the front of the room.

"You will design your own country.", he said, "Starting with drawing a map. You will find everything that you need in the front. You may begin."

A bunch of students immediately got up, going and getting some white paper. As he got it, he felt that sense of excitement rise inside of him again. Oh, the possibilities of this assignment.

"Hey, Merry.", he said to his friend, "What are you going to name your country?"

"I don't know yet.", he said, "You?"

"Don't know yet."

As they got to work drawing, he could hear many complaints from students saying that they 'could not draw'. He sighed.

He looked over to see what sam had named his country. The country was a square, with three states named Sam State, Big State, and State.

"Jeez, Sam.", he said, "What's next, Cry Me A River River and Build Me A Bridge Bridge?"

"Thanks for the great idea!", his friend said.

He turned his attention to the window. He knew he should really be starting on his project, but he WOULD have all week to do it... He yawned, feeling quite tired. He hadn't really gotten any sleep last night because he had been up late, thinking about what had happened that day.

And that was when he heard the hushed whispers from the other students.

"Oh yeah, I heard he beat the crap out of him?", one whispered.

"Why?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't want to mess with him, though."

"Yeah, that's for sure! Did you see all of that blood when he got on the bus?"

"There was never any blood, liar."

"Oh yes there was."

"No there wasn't!"

And that was when it struck him. He had been stared at because they thought Legolas had beat him up yesterday. Anger and worriedness burned inside of him at the same time. How far had this rumor spread? Had it gotten to the office yet? What would happen to him?

And then he heard it.

"Can I please have Legolas and Pippin to the front office for a moment?"

The two locked eyes, and he could sense the anxiety burning off of both of them.

"Ooohhh, " some of the students in the class whispered.


	8. Breaking The News

Legolas and Pippin met eyes anxiously, both thinking the same thing. Had the rumor already spread to the front office? The two grabbed their agendas off of their desks and headed down the hall, both too terrified to speak. For whatever reason, something possessed Pippin to try and talk to him.

"We're going to need a solid excuse.",he said as he walked, not bothering to turn to face Legolas.

"Yeah.", th elf said, "If we have even the slightest difference in our 'excuses' then they'll be suspicious."

"So, let's get this straight.", Pippin said, surprised that the blank, emotionless conversation between them was going so well, "I was the goalie, you kicked the ball, I wasn't paying attention, it got me in the nose."

"It wasn't you.", Legolas said, "I was being overly competitive. It was my fault."

"No it wasn't.", Pippin said, "If I had been paying attention, then it wouldn't have happened."

"Speaking of paying attention," Legolas said, laughing, "I wish I had PE with Frodo." He smiled, "It would be funny to watch him text and play soccer at the same time."

"Yeah.", Pippin agreed, "That would be kinda comical."

Pippin did his best imitatation of Frodo playing soccer, his hands in front of him like they were in his jacket pockets and his head bowed.

They both laughed. Maybe this wasn't so negative after all. And maybe, just maybe, this little experience could be the start of a new friendship.

They reached the office, and both of them hesitated at the wooden door that said, ' 9th grade office' in white decal letters. Pippin reached out and knocked on the door, his heart pounding in his chest. HE then waited nervously for the door t open, and indeed it did.

"Good morning, boys.", the woman at the front office said, "Are you Legolas and Pippin?"

"Yes am'am.", Legolas said, obviusly putting on a brave front. He shifted uneasily. The woman at the front desk was a human with her curly brown hair in a messy beehive with a pencil behind her ear and the stereotypical secratary glasses on. She chewed her gum like a cow with her mouth open.

"Yes, the soccer coach wanted to see you. He's in the room to the right." She pointed a long-nailed hand at the door.

They both nodded and walked in. Pippin's heart leapt as the secretary told them this, had they been picked for something special?

"Hello, boys.", a man in his early thirties said, "I'm the soccer coach, Mr. Bidds."

Mr.Bidds was a tall man, with brown hair and brown eyes. He was very athletically built, and he had a good tan. Mr bidds scratched at a bug bite on his right arm as he spoke, "I was told by the PE teacher about your little performance yesterday, and I got advice from some of your peers. I thought it over, and I have decided that I would like to ask you two if you'd be interested in joining the soccer team."

Pippin felt an excited energy shoot through him, an ecastic sort of feeling. He wanted to yell out in victory, in happiness. This was great! Not only was he on the soccer team, but he wasn't in trouble. He looked to legolas to see what the elf's reaction would be. Legolas was obviously thrilled, and was eagerly asking the coach more questions.

"What position?", he asked, his foot thumping the ground sort of like thumper from Bambi.

Pippin wondered about this, but said nothing.

"You two are to go back to class now.", he told them, "Lunch will have just started by now."

"Okay.", Pippin said.

"Yes sir!", Legolas said happily, a smile firmly planted on his face.

As the wo walked to the lunch room, he felt happier than ever. Nothing could crash this great day. Nothing!

"This is great!", Legolas said to him, "The school soccer team! We get to play for the school! Can you beleive this?"

And that was then he realized that Legolas was not the pretty boy, Faceman Peck sort of guy that he had first seen him as, but was in fact a jock. More specifically, a soccer jock. You see, a jock and a soccer jock were two very different things. A guy could be on the football team and have every girl wanting his autograph but not be a jock, you had to be involved if you were to be a jock. Anybody who was o the soccer team automatically got the rank of soccer jock. Where the jocks much resembled the ripped guys you would see on gym commercials who you really know are on sterroids, the soccer jocks were the guys who were graceful, defined, romantic, and 'cool' beyond beleif. He had the opportunity now not only to be one of them, but to be THE goalie. THE ONE GOALIE. There were multiples of the other players, but there was only one goalie, so he would get all of the credit.

"Yeah..", He murmured as they walked into the lunch room, "It' amazing..."

That day,Legolas decided to sit with him and his friends, who had no response except for smiles and waves.

"So...", Merry stated, "How'd it go?"

Pippin felt joy rush through him all over again as he thought about the great news.

"Well, as it turns out, they wanted to ask us if we would play for the school soccer team.", Pippin said proudly.

Legolas nodded to confirm what he had said, the elf was beaming and he could just FEEL the happiness radiating off of him.

"Dude, that's great!", Merry exclaimed.

"Congrats, man.", Frodo said, doing a fist jab with him and then Legolas. How Frodo to do a knuckle bump instead of a handshake...

"Dude, that's freakin awesome!", Boromir said with a cocky grin.

The lunch conversation went on like this, with them mostly talking about the new soccer team, and eventually they left.

"Congratulations, man!", Merry said, hitting him a high five, "Congratulations."


	9. Smoky The Bear in today's classroom

After lunch, he realized as he was walking through the hall that his next class would be with PC. PC, of all people!

And, as if on cue, the bell rang, idsmissing them from class. Pippin hurried through the hallway, not really wanting to know what would happen if he was LATE for PC's class. When he got into the room, he was greeted by the freezing air that kept PC's life going, and a few wails from people to 'take me with you'. Pippin sat down next to Merry, who was gazing up at the board with interest.

Rosie was the only one that was actually doing what she was told, the rest of the class were sort of doing their own thing. Frodo, of course, was texting under the desk, as he had been ALL DAY LONG. This made Pippin wonder something that he hadn't ever really thought of before. How much were that kid's cell phone bills, anyway? His family more than likely would live in a cardboard box by now if Frodo didn't have unlimited texting, that was for sure.

He saw PC walk to the front of the classroom, and get his smartboard ready.

"This is the warm-up.", he told them, "It's graded." Several howls of protest came from the student body, and some even got up from their chairs to complain.

"But you never taught us how to do this!", He saw a dwarf exclaim.

"Gimli, stop interrupting class!", PC exclaimed, waving his hands furiously in the air, "STOP interrupting class that is rude and--"

"How am I interrupting class?", the dwarf demanded, "I don't understand this!"

"Gimli!", PC barked, and by now the whole class was watching, "Do you want me to send you out of the room?"

"Yes, quite frankly, I do.", The dwarf said hopefully, staring down PC, who was obviously pretty angry.

"Leave!", PC said, taking a chair outside the door and holding it open, "You may come in when you are ready to behave."

"Yes!!", Gimli exclaimed,quite literally jumping in the air with joy as he was escoprted out of the room.

"Lucky.", Merry muttered as he worked on a drawing. Merry was a great guy, and a great student, but even he couldn't bother to pay attention, cooperate, or even behave in this class. You see, everybody in PC's class except for Rosy was bad in some way, but some people were mildly bad and so therefore they were 'good' being defined as sort of bad and-- Oh forget this! Basically, Rosy was the only person who behaved in this class.

Gimli walked out of the classroom joyously, with a spring to each step that he took. Pippin felt a tinge of envy as he watched Gimli finally get an escape from this asylum, this crazy place of no return. He reached down and got out his binder and a pencil, and began to draw.

What you had to understand was that Pippin had a thing about pencils: They had to be perfectly sharp. Pippin got up to sharpen his pencil, thinking nothing of it until he heard PC howl at top volume that he was being disrespectful.

"How am I being disrespectful?!", he demanded, confused beyond beleif. Like, seriously, how was he being disrespectful? By getting up to sharpen his pencil?

"Mr.Took, sit down and write your notes!!", the teacher practically shreiked. Pippin shrunk back in slight intimidation, never before had he met anybody with such a blood curdling scream as PC. Not only did PC have a blood-curdling scream, but he also had vicious hand gestures. In fact, PC sort of reminded him of an angry bear on his hind legs.

_Jeez, _Pippin thought as PC continued to scream at him, _If one of his hands hits somebody's head, that would be enough to knock them unconscious! _Apparently, Arwen and the girl next to her were thinking the same thing, because both of them were ducking with their chins on their desks and their hands on the back of their heads like there was a tornado warning.

"Sit down!!", PC shreiked,once more doing the hand gestures.

Pippin nodded, slinking back to his spot next to merry as PC resumed teaching the class.

"Dude," Pippin said, "I think we just found a triggr point. And my pencil's really dull. I want to go and sharpen it, but I don't want to get yelled at."

"Let me see that!",. Pippin exclaimed, taking a look at the pencil, not beleiving that it was really the pencil. As it turned out, the pencil actually was pretty dull, at least for drawing Manga with.

"You're right.", he sighed, "But PC _will _kill you if you get up.", he said, weighing the pros and cons of the situation. On one hand, get the fatal bear teacher pissed off with you but get a better lead, on the other hand let Arwen and thew girl next to her, yourself, and your ears live another day but have a dull lead...

"I've got a solution.", he said, pressing his pencil point against the table until a snap could be heard, "Like so."

Merry got up to sharpen his pencil, and a bellow could be heard from PC. Pippin felt a tinge of fear for his friend, as he put his pencil in and began to sharpen it.

"Do you just get up and sharpen your pencil in your other classes?!", Bear teacher demanded furiously, waving his massive paws over Arwen's head yet again.

"Yes!!", Pretty much the whole class said at the same time, "They let us!"

PC rolled his eyes.

"Sit down and I'll let you borrow this pencil.", he said, handing Merry a mechanical pencil and walking back to the front of the room, "Anyways..."

"Dude, you're lucky!", Pippin said, slightly envious of his friend, for all manga artists knew that a mechanical pencil was the best kind of pencil for just about anything because you could shade with them and they almost never went dull.

The bell rang, dismissing them, and as they left he heard Merry say, "He ain't gettin' this back."


	10. An Exotic Touch

Merry and Pippin started down the hall, matching strides almost perfectly as they strained under the weight of their schoolbooks. In fact, Pippin could make a fair bet that if he was to set them on a scale, they would weigh at least thirty pounds. His hair was in his eyes, and he desired to brush it to the side, but alas, he couldn't because his hands were clearly occupied. Merry was walking through the hall, hitting high fives with almost every person that they passed in the hall, most of them that he did not know and had not even seen before.

"Hey, Merino! Wassup?", A grunge teenager asked; he was obviously a senior by the way he was dressed and his general at-ease look. Merry stopped in his tracks, doing a knuckle bump with said senior.

"Nothin' much, Aragorn.", he said to the Senior, "What about you?"

"Ah, same here.", he said. Pippin raised an eyebrow curiously as he watched the two interact, how on earth did Merry know this guy when he was three whole grades older than him? The two seemed very comfortable around each other, but he felt creeped out by the general raggedy appearance of 'Aragorn', if that was even his real name. He took the chance to look at his schedule while the two discussed, using hand motions and friendly gestures, as he was unsure as to what his next class would be. And low and behold, he had foreign language next.

"Well, bye.", he heard Merry say as he waved. _Thank god! _The two continued walking along the hall, where they had to part their separate ways as the hall divided into two wings.

"Bye Merry!", he said, though the name Merino still hung in the back of his head. He desperately wanted to call Merry that, but it was probably a term reserved for homies only, and a homie and a friend were two different things. A homie was the guy that would lean on a wall at your side doing nothing for three whole hours, and a _friend _was the person who you would laugh with. He walked up to the door of the foreign language classroom, wondering what language it was exactly that he was going to be learning. As he walked in, it became quite obvious to him what language they must be learning by the yells and remarks that were flying across gthe classroom.

"I don't need to know this, for god's sake!"

"It's not like somebody's gonna walk up to me when I'm doing open heart surgery on a patient and ask, 'What is the number four in elvish?' I mean, come on!"

Elvish. They were learning Elvish, of all languages. This language was notoriously hard to learn, from what he understood, and he was going to have to do some mental preparation here. He looked around the classroom for where he would sit, and he saw Boromir wave at him.

"Hey Per, over here!", he called, waving his right arm like a drowning sailor. Next to him sat Legolas, who was flipping through one of the textbooks and making snide remarks under his breath. He was clearly bored, and so were all of the other students who weren't fighting amongst themselves.

"Greetings, class.", a man said, walking up to them, "I am your foreign language teacher, Mr. Sauron. This nine weeks we will be learning to speak Elvish. Now, can anybody tell me where the language originated?"

No hands went up. Legolas continued making his remarks under his breath as the teacher talked his head down and his blonde hair hanging in front of his eyes.

"How about you, Legolas?", Sauron prompted, looking at the elf.

"Huh?", the forward asked, looking up from the pages of the book, "What? What was the question?"

"The question was," the teacher repeated crossly, "Where did Elvish originate?"

"Racist!", he yelled, standing up in his seat and pointing at the teacher.

"Legolas, please sit down. Now explain to me, how am I being racist by asking you a simple question?", the teacher asked, obviously frustrated but trying not to show it.

"Like, you could have asked a dwarf, or a human. Why ask an elf?", he asked, the anger in his tone starting to lessen.

"Alright, Gimli, can you please answer the question?", Sauron asked, putting his hand to his forehead.

"I don't know the answer, Sir.", Gimli said, looking at his feet.

"Who needs to know this?!", a dwarf demanded.

"He has a point.", Boromir muttered in his ear.

"Yeah.", Legolas said.

Pippin raised an eyebrow, surprised. Legolas just shrugged.

"Even I hardly use it!", he continued, even though the bell had already rang.

"I have to go, man.", Pippin told him as he headed for the buses.

"Okay, bye!", he said, waving, "See you on the bus!"


	11. The Open Road

As Pippin walked to the bus with his backpack slung over his shoulder, he couldn't help but wondder when they were going to be getting lockers. A lot of the other grades already had their lockers now, and he wanted to have the convienience of one just as he had last year, in middle school. The sun burned down on his neck as he walked across th black asphalt, Merry was probablly already on the bus along with everybody else because foreign language was on the other side of the school. Oh well, at least it would prove to be good excercise running to the main hall to go to his locker and running back. He saw his bus with the buses up front, and he climbed up the steps and began to walk to his seat. For whatever reason, Legolas was already on the bus even though he had to take the exact same route. Pippin's luck for ya, people. He sighed, and sat down next to Frodo. Frodo was, of course, texting as always. At least oe thing in his unsteady life remained constant. Frodo's earbuds were slammed into his ears, and he seemed to be listening to rap by the way that he was murmuring words to some song that Pippin had to assume was by Flo Rida. He saw Aragorn talking to the grumpy elven senior, whom he had decided to call Scary. Scary turned and looked at him, a scowl firmly on his face. Pippin flinched, but said nothing. Haldir was talking to Legolas about some soccer team that h had never even heard of, and Merry was tlking to Sam. Pippin began to get out a book to read when Frodo elbowed him hard in the side.

"What the heck was that for?!", he asked, putting his hands halfway in the air. It was not being elbowed that made him take on this tone, it was more of surprise that Frodo had unplugged his earbuds, taken off his jacket hood, and STOPPED TEXTING. Pippin was shocked that he wasn't flopping around on the bus floor right now, having a 'seejah' (seizure) as Mr. Sauron would pronounce it like a fish out of water. The others were obviously mystified, too, because almost every kid on the bus was staring at Frodo. Frodo just shrugged, and got back to what he was doing.

_Thank god!_, Pippin thought, as that scenario was beginning to remind him of the part in a scary movie where nobody on the screen talks because something horrifying just happened...so yeah.

"I heard you made the soccer team, Pippin.", Haldir said, his eyes occasionally moving to Pippin's nosebrace from time to time.

"Yeah, I did. I'm the new goalie.", he said proudly, as it was a high compliment in the culture of the bus to congratulate somebody for making the team. And it was Haldir, too, who was probablly the single coolest senior he had ever known in his life. Then again, he had only known three seniors in his life but that was beyond the point.

"Congratulations!", Haldir said, "I used to be a defense player when I was a freshman." The elf smiled at the memory. By now, all of the freshmans on the bus pretty much were leaning forward into the aisle so that they could hear his story., "I was picked from gym, like you two were. I'll tell you what, though, I was scared as hell. I thought I had done something to get sent to the office. But hey, as it turns out, soccer coach asked me if I'd be interested in playing for the school. I said yes."

"Wow.", Legolas said as he listened, "You got called up there too? I remember, we thought that we were in trouble because I accidentally broke his nose."

This was the first time that pippin had ever heard Legolas talk so openly about it, and one of the only times he had spoken at that volume on the bus, seeing as he was normally shy and quiet. Ah well for shy and quiet.

"Yep, I did. So, what did you two have for connections today?", he asked.

"Keyboarding.", Legolas sighed. Now his stance was that of an exhausted, depressed person, and his eyes began to wander.

"I feel for ya,buddy!", Sam said. They all stared at him.

"Keyboarding isn't _that _bad since I was a freshman, is it?", Haldir asked, raising a doubtful eyebrow.

"Oh yes it is.", they both said at the exact same time, "Oh, yes it is."

"What about you, Pippin?", the elf asked him curiously.

"I've got Elvish with Mr.Sauron.", he told Haldir. He saw Gimli and Legolas laugh a bit as they remembered what had happened earlier.

"Ah, Mr. Sauron is no laughing matter, you two.", Haldir said, "He HATED me more than you could possibly imagine. He was evil, I tell you, evil!"

Pippin felt a flicker of fear rising in his chest as the bus went to a stop and a few kids got off. He started to prepare to get off of the bus, grabbing his bookbag and putting it on his shoulder.

"Just heed my warning!", Haldir called as Pippin got off of the bus and walked to his mom's car.

"How was school today, honey?"

"Good.", he muttered, as it was best not to go into detail of all of today's events.


	12. Fundraising minus fun

The next morning, Pippin awoke with a sigh as he realized that he would have to take his pretests today, at least in some of his subjects. He stretched and put on his clothes, and then he went to the bathroom to brush his hair and brush his teeth. Not to mention, the first day of soccer practice was today! He went to the table and got a granla bar, which he began to gnaw at, seeing as it was rock-hard. His mother was in the kitchen, cleaning some dishes peacefully. Ah, how he wished he was an adult some of these days. Then again, who didn't?

"Pippin, time to go to the car.", she said as she grabbed her coat from the coat rack, pulling it on. He nodded and grabbed his bookbag, and then he followed her out the door and to the car. As they headed up the driveway, a thought occured to him: What about his nine weeks tests? He knew that he would fail them with PC as a teacher, but what bout the other tests? And it was more pressing now, too, because the tests now made up twenty percent of your final grade, which was a lot these days.

The car stopped and Pippin hopped out, waving to his mother as he headed for the bus stop. Minutes later the bus came by and picked him up, and he climbed on and sat down next to Frodo. Today Frodo's music was so loud that he could hear 'In the air' for the whole bus ride, even though Frodo had both of his earbuds slammed farther into his ears than Pippin thought was physically possible.

When the bus stopped, Pippin felt a surge of releif come over him. Five more minutes of some of the stuff Frodo had been listening to while he texted and Pippin feared he might become perverted for life. He wondered why Frodo wasn't perverted after listening to all of the stuff he did while he walked down the bus port, and his train of thought was interrupted by Merry.

"I heard ya have soccer practice for the first time today, huh?", Merry asked him, giving him a reassuring pat on the back, "You're gonna be the best goalie they ever did have, Pippin."

Pippin felt a warm feeling surge through him as Merry said this, it meant a lot to him to have his friend's approval. The tw began to walk down to Mr.Gandalf's class side by side, and they opened the door and walked in, sitting down in their normal spots.

"Alright, class, today we are going to be talking about a fundraiser.", Mr.Gandalf said, looking across the room, "We're going to be selling magazines to raise money for a better cafeteria."

Boromir immediately raised his hand, and Mr.Gandalf sighed before putting his hand to his forehead. Pippin had a feeling that it was going to be something so ridiculously stupid that it might kill them all, but oh well. That was who Boromir was, a person meant to make others laugh.

"Yes, Boromir?", Mr.Gandlaf said dully, obviously expecting a stupid remark. What _wasn't _expected, however, was that Boromir got up out of his seat, walked to the front of the room, faced Mr.Gandalf, got on his knees and cupped his hands above his head and said, with the fakest British accent Pippin had ever heard in his entire life, "Pleae sir, may I have some more?"

The whole class exploded into laughter, and Mr.Gandalf looked surprised and stunned by Boromir's behaviour at the same time. Pippin was laughing to tears, as that had certainly made his day, even though he had just gotten here. Merry was panting after laughing so hard as the class begain to regain its composure, and Boromir went back to his seat.

"Well then.", Gandalf said, continuing what he was saying as if nothing had happened, "We will be selling magazines. Any magazine you can think of willl be in this index in the ba--"

"What about Playboy magazine?", a kid asked. They all started laughing, and Mr.Gandalf slapped his forehead as the bell began to ring.

"Dude, THAT was funny!", MErry said as they went to history class, "Yeah. I'd love to see Boromir pull something like that in _history!"_

"Oh yeah.", Pippin said, trying to picture what would happen as he opened the wooden door to Mr.Saruman's class, "That would be hilarious."

**Short , I know... :( **


	13. Helm's Deep

They walked through the door, deep in conversation as the other students began to sit down. The windows in the classroom were open, for a nice change, and a cool breeze was floating through the classroom, moving the short, spring green curtains. Merry sat down next to Pippin, and he set down his extremely heavy pile of books on the ground and got out his History binder. Pippin did the same, getting out his binder and looking for the warm-up on the board. It was written in a dying red marker; they all knew that at times Saruman could be just about the cheapest man on the face of the earth.

Saruman himself was writing on a sheet of yellow lined paper, making a list of some sort. His long white hair fell neatly to his shoulders, and his eyes were set on the paper with extreme focus as he listened to his class sit down. He almost seemed like the perfect picture of equilibrium, his breaths were at exact intervals, he seemed so peaceful.

Pippin looked around the room to see who else he could find. He saw Rosie writing down the warm-up like he should be doing but wasn't, and he noticed Gimli speaking to Legolas with a smile on his face behind his abnormally large beard. Legolas, strangely enough, had his feet on Arwen's desk and was leaning back in his chair, his elbow on top of his own desk. No, let's rephrase that. Strangely enough, Arwen didn't mind his feet on top of her desk and paid no attention to that as she, too, spoke to Gimli. Occasionally a glance was cast in 's way, accompanied by some amused laughing. Pippin was dying to know what they were laughing about, but he decided that it would be better if he didn't interrupt.

Frodo was texting, and his head was bowed silently as if he was in prayer. He was the perfect image of an edgy urban teen, his hoodie was casting a shadow over his eyes. The only part of Frodo that moved was his thumbs, going at such a rate of speed that Pippin was surprised that they were not just a blur. He wondered who Frodo was texting, as he did not know anyone who would text in the middle of—well, actually, he hardly knew anybody that _wouldn't _text in the middle of class.

By some freaky miracle, Frodo _looked up from his cell phone _and began to quietly read the message as if he had read Pippin's mind.

"Oh my gosh, so Aragorn just got turned down. Served the little", Frodo hesitated, "Right! He always acts like he's the best person in the entire school. You know what, he can do jump in a ditch for all I care. It was hilarious though, she nearly slapped him. And god, you'd better believe I was laughing my" He hesitated once more, "Off. What's up in S-man's classroom?"

"Who is that from?", Pippin asked going through his mental list of seniors.

"Haldir. Oh, I'm telling you, he's been pissed with Aragorn for pretty much the entire year.", Frodo whispered back, grinning bemusedly, "And I'm pretty sure he's not the only one, either."

From what he assumed, there was a silent, unspoken war going on in the hidden world of the seniors. And from what he understood, there were two sides to that war, and Haldir was on one of them, and standing right across the line from his was Aragorn, both ready to lunge and throttle each other. So yes, they probably did not get along too well.

"Okay, class.", Saruman said, looking up from his papers, "Today we are going to be reviewing the battle of Helm's deep."

A loud groan was heard from just about every student in the classroom. Pippin could already feel the boredom beginning to dwell inside of him like a rock. He had heard this story at least a thousand times, and by the middle of the first story he had become tired of it. They had spent the majority of fourth grade learning about that damn battle, he didn't need to hear about it once again!

Saruman began to speak, and his words soon became white noise to pippin as his mind wandered to soccer practice, which would happen after school today. His heart practically leapt as he thought of it, hopefully it would be a lot of fun.

Saruman had now walked to the board, and his mind was still pretty much bogged down with the words that were going through one ear and going out the other. Saruman's words were hollow words, and his tone was just as flat. He was obviously enjoying it no less than they were, as he let out a sigh as he drew what appeared to be a map of the battlefield.

All of a sudden, a shriek split the bored silence.

"I lost service!", Frodo yowled, his eyes lifting from the screen of his cell phone, "Noooo!"

All eyes turned to the hobbit, who was now staring at the wall, quaking with his eyes wide.

"It's not supposed to do that.", he murmured, "It's not supposed to do that…"

stared at Frodo, raising a thin white eyebrow.

"What on earth?!", Saruman demanded, flailing his arms and looking up at the ceiling, "Why were you texting in my class, !!??"

"Because you bored the hell out of him!", Legolas spoke up, throwing his arms in the air, "We've heard about this battle for most of our lives! We don't care!"

Most of the eyes in the classroom widened in surprise. None of them had hardly ever heard Legolas say anything remotely bad, let alone yell out in class. Saruman turned around slowly, his eyes narrowed and his brows pinched together in anger. He swayed back and forth slightly, and he was the picture of a cobra about to strike.

"Legolas! I can not believe what I am hearing!", spat angrily, waving his arms in the air, "You do not speak like that in my classroom!"

"Uh, I think he just did. Burn!!", they heard Gimli yell.

"Gimli, Legolas! Both of you step out of the classroom, now!"

"Yes, sir.", Legolas sighed, looking rather bored as he did so. Gimli just rolled his eyes as the teacher followed them out of the room. The minute the door was shut, everything got silent.

"Oops, I dropped my pencil across the room. Let me go get it.", Boromir said, getting up from his desk and walking to the trashcan by the door. He put the side of his head to the door and began to listen, nodding and making mm-hmm noises every once in a while.

Pippin realized with a jolt that sometime now that door had to open, and he didn't think that Boromir was going to move out of the way. He sighed, waiting to see what would happen.

Finally, the door went flying open, and a thunk could be heard as Boromir went flying backwards. The class began to laugh, until they were silenced by an icy glare from .

"Okay, class, let's get back to work. We've got a good ten minutes before lunch.", He sighed as Legolas and Gimli returned to their seats, looking quite proud of themselves.

**Okay, sorry for the lack of updates. It's been a WHILE, I know, I've just been caught up with working on my school's newspaper. And I know Legolas is sort of out of character. Don't kill me! **


End file.
